


Noncomformity

by luminousAreWe (infinitelystrangemachine)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Finn-centric, Fist Fights, Force-Sensitive Finn, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Pre-Canon, written as gen fic but you're welcome to read it however you like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 15:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14047713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitelystrangemachine/pseuds/luminousAreWe
Summary: FN-2187 is fighting for something. He just doesn't know it yet.





	Noncomformity

Arena 1402 is only ever used for one thing.

 

“Captain.” His throat is so tight, he can only hope that his helmet is muffling the strength of his reaction. “Permission to make an inquiry.”

 

“Granted.”

 

“I wish to inquire as to which lapse in my behavior resulted in 1402, Captain.”

 

Even though he’s walking a pace behind her and she is fully suited, all of his senses are still finely turned to every last tiny thing that Captain Phasma does, like he’s little more than a series of alarms rigged to dozens of tripwires. Her head cocks to the left. Every FN trooper knows that the angle of Phasma’s helmet directly correlates to a particular one of her moods.

 

“1402 is reserved for conformity infractions, trooper.  _Your_ record is spotless.”

 

Apparently, something is _funny_.

 

And that’s how FN-2187 knows he’s screwed.

 

* * *

 

He’s allowed no armor - he strips it off with shaking hands in a janitorial closet. No blaster. No shield. FN-2187 feels sweat prick at his spine under his shirt. Aboard the  _Absolution_ , he’d heard plenty about the particulars of Phasma’s cruelty. Now, aboard the  _Finalizer_ , he’ll have to face it himself. _Fear is just a motivator. Pain is a lesson._

 

One second, she’s the leader you thought you needed, almost like the family you never knew. The next, she’s got her charged baton aimed at your head while she calmly talks you through breaking your bunkmate’s arm with your bare hands.

 

She orders him into Arena 1402, but before she closes the blast doors on him, she pauses. He can see himself reflected in her chromium-finish helmet, curving in an arc over its top. He focuses on that, unable to look into her visor - without his helmet, he doesn’t trust his own expression.

 

“Whatever happens, you are to conduct yourself as though you are in training, in a battle simulation, like always. You are to stop only when _told_ to stop. Do you understand?”

 

His mouth is bone dry. “Yes, Captain.”

 

“On the field of battle, the fight is only finished when _the enemy is finished_. Are we clear, FN-2187?”

 

“We are, Captain.”

 

Phasma lifts her mailed hand to the blast door controls. “I chose you for this exercise specifically. You had best show me why. Now wait here.”

 

The blast doors hiss shut. FN-2187 is alone.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t have to wait long - just long enough to ward off his own panic by pacing slowly from one black wall of the arena to the other across a textured gray floor that allows for more traction during sparring.

 

 _Sparring_. This room was infamous for being strictly disciplinary. He wonders how many troopers have bled on this floor. He wonders how many cried out for mercy and got none.

 

He hasn’t done anything.  _He hasn’t done anything._  Not that that’s going to matter to anyone here.

 

There’s a single white staff leaning against the wall across from the blast door. Otherwise, there are no weapons. The featureless black walls are empty. The viewing balcony near the ceiling is unoccupied.

 

Then, when his back is turned to the entrance - no, the _exit_ \- a violent shiver wracks his spine. He whirls around as the doors hiss open once more.

 

The person who steps through makes the shiver in his spine turn to solid ice.

 

* * *

 

“FN,” says a voice in the sort of tone that means that the speaker is used to feeling and looking important - an officer, definitely. “This man has just recently joined the First Order ranks, and our Supreme Leader would like for him to receive a warm welcome.”

 

FN-2187 barely hears him. He barely even remembers to stand straight and at attention. He even forgets how viciously exposed he feels, stripped of his plastoid armor and weaponless.

 

He’s _tall_ , possibly even a head taller than himself; gangly, limbs too long for his torso. His hair is long and shaggy, draggled partially over his face, and that’s how FN-2187 knows immediately that this is not a Stormtrooper he’s facing, no matter what the officer had said - they all have to keep their hair cropped close -

 

And from behind his hair leer the most chilling, hateful eyes FN-2187 has ever seen. And they’re fixed unmovingly on him.

 

“FN?” growls the officer.

 

FN-2187 catches his breath, but doesn’t dare take his eyes off the newcomer looming in front of him. “Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”

 

He doesn’t understand at all. Try telling that to a superior officer.

 

The tall, glaring man doesn’t even blink.

 

“Good. This FN trooper here is among our finest. Wonderfully obedient.” He must be addressing the stranger, but there is no reaction - he just keeps _standing_ there, knobby shoulders hunched like a cornered animal’s, his hands relaxed at his sides but with the long fingers twitching. “You could learn something from him.”

 

The blast door shuts. FN-2187 senses footsteps on the viewing balcony overhead, but doesn’t turn to look. He and the newcomer are alone, and -

 

And FN-2187 has no idea what’s going on.

 

* * *

 

In the First Order Stormtrooper training program, there are two kinds of people you meet: People who are (supposed to be) just like you, and people who have every right to make you do whatever they want.

 

The First Order’s a bubble in that way. It’s on purpose. FN-2187 doesn’t know how he’s come to understand that - though perhaps the stories of some of his bunkmates in the FN corps have saved him, the stories of those who were taken not as infants, but as children. Who still maintain memories of a world outside of the  _Absolution_ and the  _Finalizer_ and Starkiller Base.

 

There are  _other people_  out there, people who don’t fit the First Order mold. People who aren’t even human, and yet don’t live as servants or slaves, contrary to what the First Order education holos hammer into all their heads every single day starting from day one. On a bullish, determined, _rebellious_ level, FN-2187 knows what is true - and yet even to this day, in his eighteenth standard year, thrills of some strange fear of the unknown _still_ course through him upon hearing the echoes of his bunkmates’ fading memories, fear of a world he doesn’t know.

 

The First Order officers count on that ignorance. That when the moment comes, when a Stormtrooper sets foot on alien soil and raises a blaster in enemy combat for the first time - that at the mere sight of that otherness, that _disorder_ , that a single uttered command will unleash that fear, and be what ultimately pulls the trigger.

 

That isn’t the fear FN-2187 feels now. His is an instinctive, animal’s fear - the kind not born of ignorance, but in a deeply rooted, from-birth knowledge. The man standing before him now is something else entirely.

 

It’s enough to almost give him something like hope.

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” he murmurs, as quietly as he can. “Please tell me they told you something more than they told me.”

 

One of the man’s eyes twitches. FN-2187 suppresses a shudder. The man looks awful, if he’s being honest - a blotchy, sweat-encrusted face, eyes bloodshot, lips chapped and split in two different places. His arms are bare - another hint, those black clothes, a simple sleeveless shirt and tough-looking pants, are not First Order issue - and there’s a strange pattern running over his pale skin. FN-2187 is _pretty_ sure he’s human - and pretty sure that they’re in the same boat. Confused, and scared.

 

He’s built camaraderie on less before.

 

“Let’s just try and figure this out quick, so we can get the hell out of -”

 

FN-2187 gets about half a second's warning - the shift in the stranger’s face from hatred, to absolute murder.

 

He lunges, and goes straight for FN-2187’s throat.

 

* * *

 

Later, he can’t even be sure how he managed it. Only that he realizes that both gruelling daily training and all that brainless wrestling in the residencies serves a purpose after all. FN-2187’s body moves without his telling it to, ducking and dodging the stranger’s flying fists, and suddenly the white staff that had been several feet behind him against the wall is in his hands.

 

The stranger snarls and darts forward, seizing the staff in both hands, spoiling for some tug-of-war. Their arms bulge, FN-2187 grimaces - the man is taller than him by far and older, but not by much, and he’s got reflexes, his gangly body moving and snapping in every which direction at his slightest whim. But one of his hands is too close to the cold conductor, and FN-2187 ignites the Z6 riot control baton with a jerk.

 

The conductor slaps open and snarls with sparking blue electricity - the stranger cries out and lets go, stumbling back and cradling his hand.

 

They breathe harshly, silent and facing one another. FN-2187’s mind races.

 

What is even _happening_ -

 

And then it clicks.

 

The patterns winding over the man’s pale arms, up his neck - aren’t patterns at all. They’re reddish brown, like bruises, or _burns_ , only -

 

Only they look fresh. And they’re everywhere, painting his skin, and in jagged stripes - like someone had wrapped naked wires around him and just let the electricity run.

 

He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. He looks like he wants to kill.

 

_Reserved for conformity infractions -_

 

_Your record is spotless._

 

Oh.  _Oh_.

 

FN-2187 knows why Phasma had brought him here. Why he is the only one with a weapon.

 

He swallows hard so he won’t bend over and retch all over the floor. “Listen to me,” he whispers, distant in his own horror. “We don’t have to do this. We can give them what they want, and it’ll go quick, I _swear_ -”

 

The man’s face twists. Then with a strangled, furious yell, he leaps forward again.

 

“No!” He can’t stop himself. The baton swings down, aimed straight for the stranger’s head.

 

The man raises one open hand as if to catch the electrically-charged conductor in his palm.

 

The baton ricochets off nothing, throwing FN-2187’s arm backwards over his shoulder.

 

 _What_ the -

 

The stranger sneers, then slugs him in the stomach.

 

Nausea before pain - he doubles over, coughing, skittering backwards, and his opponent is racing for him, fist drawing back -

 

He slashes heavily with the baton, electricity humming. The other man sucks in his gut with a hiss and springs backward, dashes forward again, FN-2187 jabs with the baton -

 

An open hand juts out at the conductor. The baton hits an invisible barrier, throwing his arm back at the elbow, twingeing it painfully.

 

He can’t stop. Because this man - wild, furious, teeth bared - won’t. Plunging headlong into his own pain, his own punishment, willingly.

 

Anger crackles up FN-2187’s spine for the first time, and with a growl, he lunges.

 

His blows are fast and heavy, the stranger is lithe and agile for his huge size - riot baton against literally _bare hands_ , it shouldn’t have even been a contest, not when the other man isn’t even trying to dodge, but FN-2187 hits that invisible barrier again and again, some kind of sorcery against raw Stormtrooper training, they break apart and close in with rapid swings and near-deadly contact again, again, sweat pouring down their faces and backs, until -

 

With a feral snarl, the stranger falls back, then raises his arm.

 

And FN-2187 -

 

Every muscle in his body locks, and his feet part company with the ground. He rises into the air.

 

Terror  _shrieks_ through him, but he can’t even open his mouth to scream as his throat closes -

 

“ _Kylo_!”

 

The stranger freezes. His eyes roll up, baring the whites, to look at the viewing balcony overhead. He doesn’t lower his arm.

 

“So that  _is_ your name.” The officer from before is somewhere up there, and he gives an uncomfortable cough. “You’d do well to remember the Supreme Leader’s orders.”

 

The man - Kylo - his mouth is shaking, his jaw tense, the tendons standing out in his raised arm. FN-2187 is lost in a cloud of choking fear and  _literal_ choking, his airway nearly shut, his skin feels deathly cold -

 

In a blink, the pressure around his throat vanishes. He falls, and his feet hit the floor so hard he nearly drops to his knees. But he clasps at his own throat and heaves in breaths, and he stays standing, and the baton stays clenched tight in his hand.

 

Kylo meets his eyes, and the fire in them seems to have banked a bit, but -

 

FN-2187 has gotten his taste of the predator’s teeth. And he is not prey.

 

He roars and  _charges_ , and this time Kylo doesn’t raise his hands - he ducks and dodges wildly, moving in spins and pivots, intricate footwork, moving in circles, FN-2187 swipes for his neck and Kylo bends backward to let it slash within an inch of his skin, and FN-2187’s free fist finds the point of Kylo’s jaw.

 

The punch cracks - Kylo’s head snaps back and he drops straight backward, hits the ground hard. His legs lash out, but FN-2187 scrambles and avoids them easily, his mind a storm of white noise, and when Kylo sneers and sits up - with great difficulty - to smash an elbow into FN-2187’s ribs -

 

FN-2187’s boot catches Kylo in the chest. The air  _whooshes_ out of his lungs - the elbow strike hits limply. He hits the ground again, flat on his back under FN-2187’s boot, and the riot baton hovers an inch from his face.

 

Silence. Just buzzing electricity and their harsh breathing. A hand closes around FN-2187’s calf and he grinds his foot down warningly, but Kylo just pushes on him, much weaker than he’d expected.

 

Red mist seems to clear from his vision. He blinks down at Kylo on the floor - bleeding from the mouth, eyes tired but furious, skin scorched, muscles worn out. He doesn’t even know who he is. FN-2187 had just snapped because of his own fear, and now he -

 

This is wrong.

 

FN-2187’s hands tighten around the baton. He knows the officer is up in the balcony - Phasma is probably with him. What they want couldn’t be clearer.

 

Even writhing in pain, Kylo probably wouldn’t be able to get far in a struggle. He’d seemed so powerful during the fight, but he’s so beaten down, he’s so weak -

 

The burn scars on his face would last forever. Kylo’s muscles would be feeling the ache from the electric shocks for days.

 

 _You got here because you did something they didn’t like_ , FN-2187 thinks. His and Kylo’s eyes are locked.  _You fought them, didn’t you? Good. Good._

 

Call him crazy, but something like understanding crosses Kylo’s face.

 

And a voice, low and rough, sounds in FN-2187’s head.

 

_Do it. They’re watching you._

 

FN-2187 nearly drops the baton.

 

Kylo blinks once, and then pure, pained anger twists his expression. His eyes look dangerously wet.  _DO IT_.

 

FN-2187 is getting tired of people telling him what to do.

 

He turns, looks over his shoulder, and glares straight up into Phasma’s visor. The officer beside her scowls, but -

 

She tilts her head. Chrome flashes. “All right,” she says quietly. “That’s enough.”

 

* * *

 

They have to half lift, half drag Kylo away. Whatever injuries he’d sustained before the fight seem to have finally taken their toll. When the blast door shuts behind them, Phasma and FN-2187 are alone in Arena 1402.

 

The silence weighs heavy. FN-2187’s heart is galloping in his breast, and -

 

He is angry. It feels good.

 

“Your greatest weakness,” Phasma murmurs, “is mercy. Remember, FN-2187, that I know this.”

 

He looks her in the visor. On some level, he knows that the thunderous glare hasn’t yet left his face.

 

In his mind’s eye, he sees Kylo’s murderous intent, returned in full force the instant Phasma had stopped their fight, subsequently stopping FN-2187 from becoming Kylo’s torturer. The guy really needed to work on knowing who his friends are.

 

Kylo had resisted something,  _somehow_ , but -

 

His was the fighting of wounded prey. Hating everyone, striking out at everyone, destroying everything.

 

(FN-2187 will be different. He swears it.)

 

“That mercy will kill you someday,” Phasma says, and it is a promise. “Go to your quarters. We’re done here.”

 

FN-2187 dreams, that night, of open sky he has never seen. Beneath it, flames are consuming everything.


End file.
